Captivity is consciousness : an exposition of Julia Kristeva's thought and its application to selected literary texts

Abstract:

Examines the potential for a new approach to literary texts made possible by Julia Kristeva's theoretical insights. Broadly speaking, Kristevan theory challenges the literary critic to refuse the role of interpreter, whose aim is locate meaning. Instead, the Kristevan analyst must attempt to understand the unconscious by unveiling the processes that constitute the text itself, and by isolating the effects of the pre-linguistic on the written text. The study explains Kristeva's major theoretical works and illustrates the development in her thought in over twenty years of publication, beginning with the first essays Kristeva wrote on coming to the West in 1966. Comparisons are drawn between her theory of the subject as presented in Revolution in Poetic Language and in Tales of Love . There is also a discussion of Kristeva's psychoanalytic procedures. The Kristevan notions of subjectivity and text are applied to the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The study investigates how and why Dickinson s verse defies meaning through a valorisation of the pre-linguistic. It is concluded that Dickinson s ambiguous semantics gives rise to multiple condensations and displacements which create an other text beneath the written text. It is argued that the impact of the verse on the reader is the result of the reader's own unconscious phonemic displacements and condensations. Henry James's novel, The Wings of the Dove , is the object of Kristevan commentary. Here, the examination of his later style reveals that James's language is characterised by semiotic as much as symbolic traits. It is also demonstrated how Kristeva's psychoanalytic apparatus may be used as a reading process.